유치진의 사실주의극에 대한 재검토 - 액션 분석을 중심으로 = The Reexamination of Ryu Chi-Jin`s Realism Plays

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Ryu Chi-Jin pioneered Korean realism play in 1930s, and his works are now evaluated as a turning point in the history of Korean theatre. This paper, designed to reexamine Ryu Chi-Jin`s realism plays from the new perspective, employs the following research methods. First, this study premises that realism is a largely self-contained hierarchy of systems governed by artifice in construction. From this fact, it follows that the realism play involves the conceptual framework of reality, because it is nothing but a construction, selectinig and arranging specific aspects of life. Second, to find out the conceptual framework of reality, this study examines the actions, mainly focused on the particular way of life, the particular sense of life, and the particular response to reality that are rendered in a given play. Based on the above methods, this paper studied what reality is represented and experienced in Ryu Chi-Jin`s plays. As a result this study arrived at the following conclusions: `A Mud Hut` and `The Landscape of a Village Standing a Willow Tree`, depicting a hopeless life under the rule of Japanese imperialism, are pervaded by the actions of sadness, lamentation, frustration, and fatalism. Such a main tone of the plays is sometimes counterbalanced by the humorous action that is actually nothing but a ridiculous gesture intended to escape the painful life. Under the subjective sensibility, the playwright tried to express such a life as an elegy that recites the sad destiny of people. The result is the reality of fatalistic helplessness caused by the permanent despair of the period, or the world looked at with sadness. `Slum`, dealing with the oppressed life under the rule of Japanese imperialism, draws the enervate action of the old generation who is seized with fear. They try to eke out a scanty livelihood by adapting themselves to a given reality. The Young people, in contrast, attempt to resist to the social oppression. However, their voice is buried by the overall atmosphere of the play that is pervaded by the fatalistic helplessness. Consequently the reality depicted in the play is the world that is helpless to the social suppression, involving a binary opposition between the old and the young. `Cow`, based on the paradoxical situation of a good harvest beggar, shows the life of the peasants that is full of contradictions. To the contradiction of farming system under the rule of Japanese imperialism, the old people and the young people take the divided attitudes of resignation and resistance. The resisting spirit of the young men, however, is preceded by the individual desire. In the meantime, the peasants try to seek pleasure in the middle of the painful life, but the momentary joy is always changed into the suffering at the end. Such a paradoxical life throws the peasants into the mental confusion. Paradox, represalted by the situation of `a good harvest beggar`, is the conceptual framework of the playwright that looks at the peasant life under the rule of Japanese imperialism. The result is the reality of confusion. Generally speaking, Ryu Chi-Jin`s plays are composed of actions that respond emotionally and mentally to a given reality. Consequently his plays turn out to be reactive rather than active, focusing on the mental and emotional reaction at the expense of active action. Ryu Chi-Jin`s realism, therefore, remains at the level of `men in situation`, unable to deal with `men in action`. The result of this study is different from the existing interpretations in some respects. By this time, the studies on Ryu Chin-Jin`s realism plays have stressed on the following facts: (1) the exposure of contradictions under the rule of Japanese imperialism, (2) the resistance to Japanese imperialism, and (3) the elements of enlightenment. These points are largely based on the partial interpretation of the play or on the subject oriented interpretation. When we analyse the plays on the basis of action, the primary meani